I'm a little bit confused as regard to the M2's software medium. I've found magazines from mid-1996 pretty firmly declaring that the M2 would use DVDs, but I'm now reading an interview with Trip Hawkins in the October 1996 issue of Next Generation in which he says that a DVD game system would not be possible until 1998, and that Panasonic would undoubtedly be launching the M2 in 1997 with a CD-ROM drive. Searching the forums here, I gather that the existing M2 prototypes include both models with CD drives and models with DVD drives.

So if I understand correctly, then, Panasonic was going to launch the M2 with a CD drive and introduce a DVD-based model later. What has me confused, though, is I don't see how that would work. Wouldn't CD-based and DVD-based consoles necessarily be incompatible with each other? Even assuming there isn't a more fundamental compatibility issue than the reading of the disc, surely a DVD game made for the M2 wouldn't play on a unit which doesn't have a DVD drive. At best, it sounds like Panasonic was essentially going to launch a platform which they were already planning to make obsolete in a year or two. What am I missing here?

I haven't read the articles myself but it sounds like standard behaviour for the console industry at the time. 3do were looking to release the M2 around 1996/1997 but DVD tech in consoles was still a few years off, Ps2 released in 2000. 3do couldn't afford to wait that long in order to maintain a presence in the console industry so they would have gone with a launch model with a cd rom and then brought out a follow up Model with the DVD drive probably around 1999/2000. You are correct, the 2 models would not be interchangeable unless the M2 was designed to have the rom drive as external connected by an ide type connection. Then u could simply upgrade the drive when the tech became available plus a firmware upgrade.